<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>snowsilk and statues by storiesmadeofstars</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28103310">snowsilk and statues</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesmadeofstars/pseuds/storiesmadeofstars'>storiesmadeofstars</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, Introspection, Slow Burn, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 12:02:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28103310</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesmadeofstars/pseuds/storiesmadeofstars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the awards ceremony on Yavin IV, Leia debates if she's made the right choice</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cassian Andor/Leia Organa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. the mask</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Multi-chapter, here we go!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Finally in her quarters, Leia slowly unwinds the heavy braid from the top of her head, then settles on the edge of her bed, yawning. The ceremony is now over, the evacuation is complete, and all she has left to do is…</p>
<p>Is everything. </p>
<p>Lead a rebellion. Honor the memory of Alderaan. Grieve her family. Avenge their lives. Save every planet, every life she can.  Kill Darth Vader.</p>
<p>Life had seemed much simpler while she’d stood on the raised dias steps, holding out medals as if they were hopes made physical. Honoring three humans and one Wookie while she’d wished she could thank every being within the confines of the base, and the spirit of every life lost. But she hadn’t been able to. In war, she’d gotten used to limitations. In life, though, she was still learning them.</p>
<p>Leia looks down at her hands, each nail neatly manicured, each finger so delicate that pulling a blaster trigger took a decent amount of effort. She’d always hated how small her hands were, how small she was. Her father had promised her she was so much more than the space her physical body occupied, that size didn’t matter, just conviction.</p>
<p>But what good had conviction done her, when she’d been captured? What good was having a big heart, if her body wasn’t strong enough to fight the fights her heart wanted? What good were hands taught to heal when they needed to be taught to carry blasters?</p>
<p>She sighs, knowing the answer. Even though her mother is now gone, Breha’s words follow her, just as much as Bail’s did. Her parents' advice might be small comfort, now that they are gone, but they were a comfort all the same. At least, most moments. Right now, Leia would much rather have remembered anything other than the ten thousandth lecture she’d received about proper behavior for a princess.</p>
<p>Leia fetches a cloth from her makeup container, then, slowly washes her face, washing off all the paint and powder she’d used as a mask. It had been easy to remain stoic, to bestow the heroes with medals and honor all the fighters with a smile, as long as she’d been dressed as a princess.</p>
<p>But a small voice whispers to her that this will be her last appearance as the princess of Alderaan. At least, the poised, graceful princess who would be the future queen. The one who had memorized protocols and policies for a thousand ceremonies. </p>
<p>Soon, she would be known as only the last princess of Alderaan and all those years of training, all those ceremonies would die with her.</p>
<p>She must become a different type of princess then. One who does not wear gowns and carry the weight of tradition, but instead wears a uniform and carries a blaster. She needs to become a fighter to protect the peace her planet died for.</p>
<p>And yet, how is she supposed to do that?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She wasn’t supposed to be a fighter. She was supposed to be a leader. But what good is leading, if she cannot lead the charge? She should have been in one of those ships, like Luke, not stuck back on Yavin IV, shouting directions from lightyears away. Had they rescued her just so she could remain behind, a coward who let others fight for her?</p>
<p>Maybe she shouldn’t have been rescued. A dream has haunted her, ever since that moment it had happened, that she could have been the one who faced Vader. How? She has no idea, not in reality. But in her dreams, she draws a lightsaber, the blade violet like the starblossoms of Alderaan, and strikes first, strikes with all the fury she felt as she’d watched her planet crumble.</p>
<p>As a princess, she’d had fencing lessons. Couldn’t that skill have transferred? Couldn’t she have fought her way off the Tantive IV when they’d been boarded?</p>
<p>Or perhaps, Leia thinks, now looking down at the report she’d received from General Draven, she shouldn’t have remained aboard the Tantive IV in the first place. She received the plans, yes, but she’d nearly left good people behind to die. </p>
<p>People she’d never met, people who had already lost everything, and still found a way to fight for the future. </p>
<p>People who deserved medals, too, even if all the Rebellion could offer was shadows and silence, a life lived anonymously and safely away from a Rebellion that didn’t know how to honor the heroes it had made.</p>
<p>It was much easier to honor new heroes, new faces. Strangers to the cause, giving the perception that their ranks were growing exponentially. A wookie, an outer-rim farm boy and a Corellian smuggler. All of the best marketing brains on Coruscant couldn’t have dreamed up a better trio to represent the new face of the Rebellion. A non-human whose people had been decimated by the Empire, a brash youth with nothing to lose and the galaxy to win, and a smooth talker in search of vague redemption whose handsome face would surely do a great deal to help their admittedly poor recruitment numbers. Even the droids, a pilot’s astromech and a protocol droid, were the perfect symbols of calculated war and a polite peace. </p>
<p>How could they have given the medals to an Imperial turncoat pilot, a hardened criminal with the haughty manners of her Core World home, and a jaded Festian who had once been on the side of the Separatists? How could those heroes be accompanied by none other than an Imperial battle droid, as they walked down the ceremony hall? Or rather, limped, as all of them, droid included, had suffered severe injuries on Scarif. It wouldn’t do, to have them paraded past all the newer soldiers, their wounds highlighted in bright light, sure to send fear and worry into the hearts of those who hadn’t seen battle yet. Han and Luke had been completely unscathed, at least physically, by their heroics. Jyn Erso, Bodhi Rook, and Captain Andor? They hadn’t been as lucky.</p>
<p>Leia had heard their other two companions may have been more the noble type, but they, like so many others, had perished in the sands of Scarif. </p>
<p>She thought then, of how her father would have surely done a better job at the ceremony, would have demanded that the battered and jaded heroes deserved medals as much as the fresh new faces did. But Leia wasn’t Bail, and had remained silent, so silent, throughout the whole meeting.</p>
<p>Because she was realizing that she wasn’t the only figurehead that would be presented to the Rebellion that day, and the thought nearly broke her heart.</p>
<p>“Princess?” someone asks, from outside.</p>
<p>Leia blinks, not quite sure she’s even heard the voice in the first place. She’s spent so long pondering the title tonight, after all.</p>
<p>And then, there’s a soft knock at her door, just once, as polite as any knock could be.</p>
<p>“Enter,” Leia says, and tries her best to once more don a mask of royal indifference and gentle grace. She tells herself she is nothing more than a statue, and this time, tired as she is, she nearly believes it.</p>
<p> Or at least, she thinks she does, until the door opens, and a man with eyes as tired as her own stares back at her. It's a gaze that could shatter even the best mask, and Leia's not arrogant enough to think hers is anywhere close to such a thing. But she is polite enough to stand, and greet the captain by name. </p>
<p> "Good evening, Captain Andor." Leia fights to find the formal words she'd practiced, but it's a battle made more difficult by the man in front of her, who appears neither impressed nor bored of her. He appears, simply, to be focused on each word she speaks, as if ready to pick it apart for untruth. Leia digs deep, into all of her trainings, all of her mother's lectures, to finish, knowing each word takes another eternity to say. This idea was foolish, she understands now, and has little to do with the Rebellion, or with the crew known as Rogue One. She'd acted in her self-interest, nothing more. And now, she would pay the price in embarrassment and guilt. "Thank you for answering my summons. This will be brief, I assure you." </p>
<p> "Very well," he replies, and in his words, Leia senses something just as familiar as his weariness. A mask. A lie. A lie lived so long that one has begun to believe it's true. Strange to finally meet someone so like herself, and yet to find the only thing between them is... everything. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>What good is a spy, Cassian thinks, if he’s no longer unknown? What point is there to stealth, if one’s movements are now too loud to be avoided? Every step he’s taken down this long hall has been echoed with the thud of his foot, wrapped in a bacta-cast. Every breath he takes is through battered lungs squeezed by bandages holding his broken ribs together.  He’s weary, he knows, and hates that he knows it so deeply that he cannot brush it aside, the way he might snowflakes on a coat sleeve. No, this weariness has sunk into his bones, a chill no fire can warm.. </p>
<p>Even though he’s been called to report, he finds himself absentmindedly touching his captain’s badge, wondering if he’s merely been called to report to finally turn the item in, to give up the last relic of the man he once was.</p>
<p>Jyn’s already left on her own mission, or her own goals, he’s not sure which. Bodhi has found companionship within the Alliance, which is more than Cassian could have hoped for the man who had moved from stranger to dear friend in remarkable time. Even still, Cassian isn’t sure that Bodhi is comfortable here, surrounded by so many who chatter excitedly about blowing up the Death Star, as if it was no more deadly than an asteroid in orbit. Cassian wills whatever little hope and luck he has left to surround his friends, one undertaking a journey to find herself, and the other, he thinks, in some ways, trying to lose himself.</p>
<p>As for himself? How can he lose what’s never been found? He has been in this fight as long as he can remember. Long enough for the enemy to change names and faces, long enough for the good side to fill with unfamiliar faces and unknown places. When he’d joined, he’d been a boy. He’d grown up within the war, and perhaps, in doing so, he’d lost whatever small connections he’d once had to the child he’d been born to be. He’d once had a different name, more difficult for those on Core Worlds to say, as if the extra syllables were extra credits they didn’t feel like spending. He’d once had different goals, none so vague and huge as peace, but smaller ones. To keep his family safe. To win the largest toy Ewok at the first-snow carnival. To stay up until the end of one of his papá’s stories, before his sleepy eyes would close and night would come, and with it, dreams of those wonderful story-lands.</p>
<p>Cassian cannot remember the last time he dreamed.</p>
<p>Even now, he can’t recall such a thing, even as he yawns while reaching up his hand to the closed door. He knocks once, the act taking a frankly embarrassing amount of energy from him.</p>
<p>There’s no answer.</p>
<p>Part of him wonders what might happen if he turns around, and leaves, and does not return to this hallway. Would he be able to fade back into the rank and file troops of the Rebellion? Would they forget his name, his deeds, and let him live once more in comfortable infamy? Or would they find him, once more, and ask him to leave? Take his badge, his name-that-is-not-his, his only home left away from him? Or worse, would they make him a hero? Would they drape a heavy medal around his neck and cheer for him, as if he’s never done a wrong thing in his life? Would they pretend they had never sent him on a single mission that tested his morals, and pretend that he was anything but a spy and an assassin, when the need arose?</p>
<p>The door remains closed. Cassian, though he is tired and aching, refuses to give up on what might be his last mission, and so, knocks once more, and this time, says her name. “Princess?’”</p>
<p>“Enter.” The voice is strong, yet gentle, in that way one who has spent her life in fancy Core-world schools, learns. Those schools teach so much about the history of the written world and Basic and so little about what truly has occurred in the history of the galaxy. They teach so little of the suffering and the sorrow that an accent might add to a language that a planet never asked to learn. Those schools, even when they claim to teach another language, never teach the history of that planet. Instead they teach the joy, little stolen bits of the happiest parts of a culture not their own, each bit, each recipe, each dance, passed through a thousand privileged filters to remove any bitter trace of colonialism from the lesson plan. </p>
<p>It’s enough to double Cassian’s weariness, the thought of facing a privileged Core-worlder who will think, at best, that she is due some amount of so-called respect from him, and at worst, try to speak to him in a terrible attempt at a language he barely speaks even in his dreams. </p>
<p>He’s never met the princess, though there were occasions they may have perhaps been in the same mission briefing room at the same time. He can’t recall a time, not now, when all his muscles call out for rest and his head demands quiet, but he’s sure such a  time might have happened. At the very least, he knows that if he’d chosen to tune into the holo broadcast in the medbay, he would have seen her. She’d handed out medals to the farmboy and the smuggler, both of whom Cassian had heard about, though not met. Nor did he particularly want to meet either of the so-called heroes of the Rebellion, not when Cassian had met and mourned so many heroes before them. He’d turned off the broadcast as soon as it started, seeing only a small glimpse of the hall, full of solsider, and the princess standing at the end of it all, alone, then he closed his eyes and focused on healing instead. Cassian didn’t want to meet any more heroes, because he was tired of attending funerals for those same heroes.</p>
<p>The door opens, and Cassian realizes not a moment too soon that he’d been leaning on the part whooshing open. He steps back, blinking as he does.</p>
<p>“Oh.” The last princess of Aldreaan says, standing up. As she does, her dress billows around her, as white as new snow, as ephemeral as dawn, and her chestnut hair tumbles out of his half-undone braid.</p>
<p>Cassian’s breath catches in the back of this throat. She looks so much more <em>real</em> now standing in front of him. He, like every other Rebel, had seen the princess earlier today, in her formal gown, and her formal hair, her expression as poised as a painting’s, her dress as pressed as a marble statue’s. She had seemed a great deal like a work of art then.</p>
<p>Now, though, she is entirely alive, caught off-guard, without any of her usual accoutrements, designed to make her slight figure seem so much stronger, so much larger than the physical space she occupies. And yet, Cassian thinks that she doesn’t need them. She is just as intimidating standing here with undone hair and a loose robe as she is in all the regalia of her now-lost planet.  He bows his head, the action not out of enforced codes of civility, but simple respect for a woman whose very presence seems to command it. Mothma had called the princess a figurehead, but Cassian can already see the title is too small for her. A figurehead, he thinks, would not stand like a fighter in the ring, ready for any battle. Nor would a figurehead watch him as closely as he watches her, waiting for whatever tell she might catch.</p>
<p>He has heard, too, that the princess studied as a spy. Only now does he believe it.</p>
<p>“Good evening Captain Andor,” the princess says, without a trace of haughty pride. Instead, her voice is cool, measured, and practiced. It is the voice of someone who has been trained not to speak her mind. He catches himself wondering what it would sound like, if she did speak her mind. He wonders too, just what she’s said in the past to have to be so trained not to share her thoughts. </p>
<p>Cassian is wondering so deeply that he doesn’t quite hear her second sentence, though he murmurs a reply generic enough to work for whatever polite meaningless thing she’s said.  Instead of worrying if his response isn’t enough, he surveys her quarters. There are more cases and packages in her rooms than there were in all of the ones belonging to the now-fragmented group called Rogue One. He’s sure they must contain gowns, baubles, and crowns, all of those things a princess probably needs. And though he first thought of those things with derision, the flash of memory of an explosion, of the Death Star’s awful power, rings in his head.</p>
<p>He recalls, wincing, that all she has left of her family, her home, are whatever trifles have been shoved into those boxes. Knowing her role here, Cassian is sure none of them contain meaningful objects. There would be no blankets hand-quilted, no childhood possessions, nor recorded holo-disks of precious memories. Those things would have been kept safe in her palace home, not placed here on a Rebel base she barely ever visited.</p>
<p>Because who would have ever thought that Alderaan, fair, beautiful, peaceful Alderaan, would be destroyed while the Rebel base on Yavin IV was saved?</p>
<p>Cassian thinks, too, of a place he’d once thought safe, a small home nestled between snow-drifts, a box of beloved possessions pushed to the foot of a bantha wool-blanket covered bed, hidden from nosy sisters and a mother who didn’t want her son hoarding any more so-called treasures inside the house, when most of them were either twigs or bits of metal he intended to someday make into a droid. He thought too, of the day he’d had to leave that home, how there had been no chance to return to say goodbye to it, no time to grab the small treasure box, the knitted blankets, or anything at all.</p>
<p>And Cassian thinks, now, as he stands in the quarters of the last princess of Alderaan, that he is so very tired of goodbyes. The weight of all of them seems to double on his shoulders, and he catches himself staggering forward, nearly tripping over his casted foot.</p>
<p>His cheeks burn with embarrassment at his own new-found clumsiness, another small sign that perhaps his days as a spy are over. His steps had once been silent, his movements as graceful as any dancer’s. And now? He is clumsy, slow, unable to move his body in the ways that had saved his life far more than once.  “Forgive me, your majesty.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” she says again, only this time, it’s softer. Warmer. More like the snow that falls while the sun shines, and less like the icy, frozen bits of bitter dust her more formal voice had reminded him of. “No, please, forgive me. And don’t be so formal with me. I… well,” she shrugs one shoulder. “I do not think that title applies to me, not any more.”</p>
<p>“There is nothing to forgive,” he says, finding that an easier topic than her other point.</p>
<p>“I have rudely not offered you a chair, nor anything to drink.” She pushes a small chair toward him. Even that bit of furniture is so far from anything else found on this base. Its construction seems to be made of entirely spiral-shaped whorls of cast iron, designed to be not comfortable, but rather, beautiful.</p>
<p>It is, as Cassian’s own papá would have said, <em>painfully </em>aware of its own Core-world nature. The things those people made were never practical and beautiful at the same time, the way a pair of fur-lined mittens could be. Instead, the few Core-world items Cassian had seen as a child on Fest, and the many, many, he’d found once leaving his home, were designed to be one, or the other. A dress could be plain and warm, or elegant, but offer no protection from the chill. A drinking vessel could be sturdy, or could be found in a fancy restaurant, but those latter ones would be made of glass spun so finely a touch could shatter it. </p>
<p>Even still, Cassian finds himself settling onto the ridiculous chair, grateful for its existence, even if he is not fond of its design.</p>
<p>Only after he sits does the princess, although she quickly springs back up, as if pulled by a  spring. “That’s right. You are probably hungry, surely I called you away from supper.”</p>
<p>“It’s twenty-two hundred, Yavin-time, your majesty,” he murmurs, more amused than he thought he would be by any part of this exchange. The last princess is bustling around her room, tugging open boxes and bins, muttering to herself about where an electro-kettle might be hiding, with about as much formality as a mouse-droid might have.</p>
<p>“It’s <em>Leia,”  </em>she whirls, her white dress spinning around her in a flurry. “LAY-uh.” </p>
<p>Cassian tilts his head, a small amount of surprise wiping away some of his exhaustion. Dodonna, Mothma, and the other leaders who had spoken of the princess had always said it <em>Lee-a. </em>A crisp, proper sort of name for a proper sort of princess. But the way she said it… Something almost like a smile tugs at Cassian’s face, as he remembers, a time long ago, a small  alpine kybuck, a pet of one of his sisters, having exactly the same name, and pronounced the same way.</p>
<p>The kybuck had been notoriously stubborn, and it seems that the princess who shares her name is no different. As she slams down the switch on the electro-kettle, then sets two mugs onto a counter with only slightly more care, she mutters, “I am so tired of <em>your majesty</em> this and <em>your worshipfulness </em>that. I’m the same as anyone else here.”</p>
<p>“You are a princess,” Cassian counters.</p>
<p>Leia once more turns to glare at him. This time, any small amusement fades from Cassian’s mood. There is no humor in her eyes, no trace of the warm hostess she’d been a moment before, or even the formal dignitary she’d first appeared to him as. Instead, he sees her, all of her, all of the raw pain and anguish she’s held back behind a mask of cold formality. But there isn’t just grief in her eyes. That much, he’d perhaps expected to see, as the mask began to crack. Instead, Cassian looks into the princess’s eyes and sees <em>anger. </em>So much anger. A rage that burns the way a planet’s own sun could, hot enough not only to melt ice, but to burn away the very landscape. “Of what, Captain Andor? What am I princess of now?”</p>
<p>Cassian sees her anger, and finds, in some small way, it matches his own. He is angry too, though he’s not dared to call it such a thing. His hope has burned away as he has healed, perhaps because there is no new mission to focus on. It is easier to hope when there is something to work toward. When there is no goal, no driving need to move forward, there is only the pain and anger of all of the unfairness and loss that the past holds. “You tell me, Leia,” he replies, pronouncing her name the way she’s asked. “And after that, tell me what I am <em>captain</em> of, since I know why I have been called here.”</p>
<p>She will ask for his badge, his title. She will take his role from him, the only role he’s had in the only home he’s known for so long. Cassian has already heard Draven and Mothma consulting each other over this plan. They think it's for the best, believe that rest will do him good. They don’t understand that he, like a Karkarodon in water, must keep moving, or he will die.</p>
<p>They would give him a new name. Again. He will become someone he isn’t. Again. But this time, unlike in each of the missions they have asked of him, the mask he will be asked to wear is not only permanent, but only chosen for his sake, not for the sake of the Rebellion.</p>
<p>Leia stares at him. “Why do you think you’ve been called here?”</p>
<p>“For you to take my badge.”</p>
<p>She shakes her head. “No. Capt-”</p>
<p>“Cassian,” he says, and does not bother to say it a second time. Either she will hear the correct pronunciation, or he will suffer through a mess of his name as he has so many times before.</p>
<p>But she merely bows her head. “And then I will also ask your forgiveness for that misunderstanding. May I pour you some hot chocolate? Or tea? Or caf? Or--”</p>
<p>“Caf. How many beverage pods do you have?”</p>
<p>“Too many,” she replies. “An officer I know… left me a basket of them. A… grief-gift, I suppose. Customary on her home planet. To offer warm beverages against the chill of loss.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know we had an officer from Nanth'ri.” he says. Nor did he assume the princess would be so well-versed in traditions of a mid-Rim planet.</p>
<p>“Colonel Ma’Leu, yes,” Leia explains. “A flight leader, and a friend.”</p>
<p>“How did you learn of Nanth’ri customs?”</p>
<p>Leia lifts one shoulder again in a small shrug. “My father and I visited there, once, on a mission I understand now to be for the Rebellion, though he’d told me it was merely goodwill. I was only seven.”</p>
<p>“Was it Hutt-occupied then?”</p>
<p>She nods once. “I feel for them. First Separatist rule, then--”</p>
<p>“There is a large difference between the Separatists and the Hutts, your majesty.” He says the title again, and this time, it is a line in the sand. A division between them. The daughter of heroes of the Republic and the son of Separatist loyalists. </p>
<p>Leia bows her head. “I didn’t mean--”</p>
<p>“Of course not,” he says, and though the words are casual, his tone is not. “You people never mean your insults.”</p>
<p>“You people?”</p>
<p>“Core-worlders,” he mutters. “All of you thinking you know best.”  He thinks of what he’s heard of the Corellian smuggler, of his cockiness and obnoxious bragging, ever since the Death Star was destroyed, and his jaw clenches. Cassian knows the Rebellion needs all the help it can get, he just wonders if there is any base large enough for the ego of a man such as that. </p>
<p>“I will be the first to say what I know,” Leia pauses. “Is oftentimes not the best. I have made mistakes, Cassian Andor. Many of them. And I will keep making them the rest of my life.”</p>
<p>She says nothing else, and instead, turns back to the electro-kettle and pours them each a cup. The steam wafts up from the mugs as she walks back toward him. Silently, she holds out one to him, and as if acting on instinct, he takes the mug.</p>
<p>Then, he blinks, surprised. Surprised enough, in fact, that he switches the mug to his hand still cradled in the sling, so that he can rub his tired eyes, trying to ensure what he sees is true. “And these?” he asks softly. “Were these a gift from a friend from Nanth’ri?”</p>
<p>She shakes her head. “No. They were my father’s mother’s, and are among my dearest possessions.” A small, rueful smile appears on her face, as once more, the mask breaks. This time, there is no anger tempering her grief, only the bittersweet color of nostalgia. She lifts her own mug up to her face to better see the hand-painted design. “There used to be six. One for--”</p>
<p>“Each quest the Princess undertook to bring back the sun,” Cassian finishes for her, seeing her own mug more clearly. Just as his depicted the legendary Princess Luciana casting her net over four Kiros birds, the first of her quests, Leia’s depicted the princess counting every grain of sand on the Never-Ending Sea’s shore, the last quest.</p>
<p>Leia nods. “Quite so. Yes. But I’m afraid between my own clumsiness and my father’s, when he was small, these are the two that remain.” She takes a small sip of her tea, and Cassian watches as it seems as if the mask flickers, as if she is debating if she remains herself in front of him, or returns to the cold comfort of formality. The little smile remains, as she makes her choice, her voice still warm, though her eyes carry so much sadness Cassian finds himself averting his eyes. He is used to only seeing sadness like that in a mirror.  “I used to love the stories of Luciana,” she says, tracing over her mug, made of sturdy stoneware, though painted by a master artist. “Of her heroics, her courage… the quests.”</p>
<p>“As did I.”</p>
<p>Her eyebrow arches up, asking a question without any words.</p>
<p>Cassian decides to answer it. “Fest shares some of the culture of Alderaan, your majesty. From a long, long time ago.” He taps the illustration with a knuckle. “Though there are of course differences.” A small world for such a great divide. “I am more used to seeing Princess Luciana  wearing a tauntaun fur cape and gloves made from snowsilk rather than this gown, for example.”</p>
<p>“What’s snowsilk?’</p>
<p>“La tela más fina de las tejedoras de Fest ,” he replies, and finds himself falling into his heart’s own language again. He prepares himself to translate for her, though the task feels oddly arduous, as if it’s one of Luciana’s own impossible quests.</p>
<p>But instead, Leia answers in the same. “Por favor cuéntame más.”</p>
<p>Cassian looks up at her. No longer do her hazel eyes hold anger, or the pain of memories now tarnished by loss. Instead, they sparkle like stars, with all the light of hope. She adds, in Festian that is both well-intentioned and surprisingly accurate, “it has been a long time since I’ve heard those stories. If you would tell me the ones you know… it would be as if my family was here, maybe, in some small way.”</p>
<p>It too has been a long time since Cassian thought of the bedtime stories his mother once told him. Longer still since he’d believed in the magic they told of. Tonight though, a glimmer of the belief seems to shimmer within the small room, like snowflakes frozen in time. Slowly, he begins, fading in and out of his native language, the way a cloud can cover the moon, but only for a moment. As he speaks, it seems as if the world around them, the base, the impeding evacuation, and soon, his own story’s ending, falls away.</p>
<p>He can practically hear the crackle of his childhood home’s hearthfire, and feel its warmth, even if he knows it is long extinguished. </p>
<p>And by the smile now on the Princess’s face, as her eyes slide closed, her hands wrapped around her mug, she too has found something she thought lost forever.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The story seemed to wrap around them both, like a warm blanket knit only out of memories. Leia leaned toward him to hear the very end of the tale, a few locks of her impossibly long brown hair falling into her eyes. Without thinking, Cassian reaches out, brushing the hair behind her ear. And then, as his calloused palm brushes against her silk-soft cheek, he freezes. The magic of the story sputters away, his heartbeat racing.</p>
<p>But Leia only leans closer, pressing against his hand as a loth cat might. His thumb strokes against the bone of her jaw, forgetting himself once again. </p>
<p>“Finish the story?” she asks. “If… if you know the ending.”</p>
<p>Of course. All Cassian knows is endings.</p>
<p>He pulls his hand away, tucking it in the sling of his wounded arm, hiding his hopes behind his failures. Then, he closes his eyes, hiding himself from his wishes, and returning instead to the past.</p>
<p>The story falls from him now, not like woven strands of magic, but rather, like snowflakes, heavy and cold, yet still glittering with reflected possibilities. As he tells of Luciana’s last quest, of her deep love and tragic loss, he wonders if those stanzas have ever been told in quite this way before, or, if like a snowflake, each retelling is slightly different, ephemeral and yet perfect in its fleeting beauty.</p>
<p>When he is done, she thanks him once again in Festian, before returning to Basic. “Cas--I… forgive me. Captain Andor. Might I ask,” the princess speaks formally, but not with any sort of ease at doing so. Cassian now thinks she’d probably be much happier with a cadence more suited to the recruited cadets in the Rebellion, full of slang and curses, devoid of the strict grammar rules of the Core worlds and the weight of a heavy crown. The princess takes a deep breath. “Might I ask to show you something?”</p>
<p>He nods once, a fitting gesture for a captain to give a princess. He has no idea what the appropriate gesture would be for a Festian freedom fighter to offer a member of the ruling class of Alderaan, for those two planets, as distant as they were on a star map, had ancient pasts forever interwoven. The tangled threads of colonizing, of shared language and unshared suffering, wrapped around each planet, could never be unwound. Not at least, Cassian thinks, in their lifetime.</p>
<p>
The princess crosses the room and opens her small travel case. Or rather, one of several small cases, all of them stacked on top of a footlocker that’s easily double the size of any other member of the Rebellion aboard the ship. Each grey dura-plast crate is large enough to fit a standard-sized humanoid, and stacked the way they are, they make a wall of objects large enough to seem like some strange art installation.</p>
<p>Cassian thinks for a moment about his own small case, only large enough for a second pair of boots, his cold-weather jacket, and little else. He thinks too, about the even smaller leather pouch inside that case, that holds a single piece of fabric, a square saved from the last blanket his mother ever wrapped him in, a single gear, the last remains of the countless ones littering his abuelo’s workshop, and the first credit he ever earned as a soldier in the Rebellion. Who was he to judge what containers could fit a memory?</p>
<p>But when Leia returns to sit next to him, he first notices how close she now sits next to him. Close enough that the long drop sleeve of her dressing gown brushes against his knee when she holds out whatever item she’s selected from her treasure chests. Close enough that he can smell her starblossom perfume and the softer floral scent of tea.</p>
<p>“Here,” she says, unfolding her fingers from the object.</p>
<p>It’s no larger than a thermal denominator, and Cassian, as soon as he thinks of that comparison, curses himself for doing so. What has he become, to see an object like this and immediately think of a weapon? Who is he now, that his first assumption is to assume a threat?</p>
<p>Because there’s nothing threatening, nothing dangerous about the little round metal shape in the princess’s hand. There’s no danger here, except perhaps that danger of the siren calls from memories long forgotten. He reaches out, but once more tucks his hand away, so that his now-clumsy fingers can’t brush over the tiny gears and latches that comprise the small shape.</p>
<p>Leia, though, has no fears of ruining the device. She’s never broken anything, Cassian thinks, never been charged with the destruction of something beautiful, never witnessed how quickly art can turn into rubble.</p>
<p>And then, once more, he curses himself, as he recalls the destruction of Alderaan, how the princess had been there, watching. He’d had a desperate escape to keep him from dwelling on the awful power of the Death Star. That frantic fear had been a luxury, in its own way, keeping his thoughts away from imagining what that red light had done to a once-beautiful world. But the princess, as the story goes, had no escape, no place to turn, as she watched her planet burn.</p>
<p>“This was my grandmother’s.” Leia pauses for a moment. “My father’s mother.”</p>
<p>He’s not sure why that distinction matters at first, wondering if it’s some Core-world matter. They always had such clinical views of family ties that it wouldn’t surprise him if this too was a matter they’d put under a microscope, studying it until there was no love left.</p>
<p> But Leia hesitates for only a moment, before adding, “she wasn’t from Alderaan. She came from Generis.”</p>
<p>Cassian looks up at her, a chill racing down his spine. “That’s…”</p>
<p>“In the Atrivis sector, yes.” Leia hasn’t looked at him, instead only gazing down at the object. “It was one of the reasons why--”</p>
<p>“Your father did so much outreach work there,” he finishes. “I’ve met him.”</p>
<p>“I know.” A small smile appears on her face, though there is no joy within it. “He cared a great deal about the planets there. I’m sure he--” she doesn’t finish, as a single tear falls from her now-closed eyes. </p>
<p>Once more Cassian reaches out, daring the universe itself to stop him, as he catches that tear. “He would be proud of you, princess.”</p>
<p>“I am not so sure of that.” Her lip wobbles, but her composure remains, that icy-calm that so many must mistake for her calm acceptance of tragedy. Only Cassian, who has worn so many masks, can see it for the frozen disguise it is. “Not yet, at least. I must do all I can to finish his work. To save those planets he loved, because I couldn’t… I didn’t… save Alderaan.”</p>
<p>“You saved the Alliance,” he whispers. “But that is a small thing compared to the loss of all you love, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>She finally looks up at him, tears like diamonds studding her dark lashes. “I love the Alliance too. But… it’s not a thing that can love you back, is it?”</p>
<p>It’s a quote from Luciana's tale. The princess, having finally found the mythical bird with feathers made of starfire, must let the beast go. Because though she has harnessed the power of all the stars in the sky, the beast is still wild. It cannot love her back. Holding it closer will only destroy her.</p>
<p>“No,” Cassian says. “It can’t.” How long has he clung to that same burning entity, giving it all of his heart and expecting nothing in return? How many burns, how many bruises, has he endured for the sake of a cause that knows him only as a number and a rank, a name that is not his own? Bitterness threatens to drown him, until he shakes his head, remembering a laugh shared with Melshi, a meal at Shara’s table, a song sung by Kes. Each one a memory he’d pushed aside the minute he’d landed on Scarif, knowing that they could never be again. Each a memory he finds now to be a reason to live, when he thought he’d had so few left.  “But the people found within it can.”</p>
<p>His hand rests under Leia’s now, supporting hers, as if the small object is heavy enough to need his help. “Would you like to show this to me?” he asks. </p>
<p>“Oh,” she whispers. A flush of pink, the first sign of any warmth behind that ivory mask on her face, appears. “Yes.” Carefully, her delicate fingers turn a small brass knob on the side of the metallic orb. A moment later, the tell-tale blue lines of an old, old, holo-projection flicker to life. The image is half-broken with age, but shows that same princess he’d told the tales of, with her ceremonial spear in her hand and the stars in her hand. A tiny, metallic musical tune begins, from gears so battered that the tune is horribly out of kilter, its high notes too cloying, its lows nothing more than the grind of rusted metal. Cassian’s jaw clenches at the sound, a visual tell in a face that never usually breaks. It’s small, a gesture so small that the princess doesn’t notice it, but Cassian does, and balls his fists, willing his features to reform back into the frozen mask that has kept him alive for so long. </p>
<p>He and Leia have shared so much more than he’d ever planned to. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be listening to this song, nor should he be holding her hand.</p>
<p>And yet, here is the only place in all the galaxy he wishes he could be.</p>
<p>After only a few bars, the music sputters away, fading like a sunset, and leaving the room silent except for the twin sounds of their exhales.</p>
<p>“I can fix that,” he says, and is both glad and surprised to find his voice does not tremble.</p>
<p>“How?” she asks. “It’s not played well as long as I’ve had it.”</p>
<p>“I’m familiar with those devices,” he looks away, though he cannot pull his hand away. As if she might be able to read his thoughts, he desperately tries to think of anything but the small gear in his own luggage, the singular one left from his grandfather’s workshop. </p>
<p>“Really?” she asks. “My father always said they were rare. That his mother treasured this, that she--”</p>
<p>“Bought it on Fest,” he finishes her sentence again. “That’s why you showed it to me, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Leia nods. There’s so much life in her expression now. Hope and worry, soft concern and gentle hope. How could anyone say the last princess of Alderaan was a frozen statue, if they were to see her like this?</p>
<p>How could anyone ever walk away from the princess, if she looked at them like this?</p>
<p>Cassian thinks, suddenly, of the long walk to her room. Of his fears that he has nothing left to offer the Alliance, that broken as he is, he will have no further role here. But now… now something close to certainty creeps into his heart. He imagines pledging his protection to Leia, the same way knights of old did to Princess Luciana. To protect her, so that she may go on changing the galaxy with that soft conviction so clear to her now. To stay at her side and in her shadow, the way the stars hid in the Festian sky during the day.</p>
<p>“You know of them, then?” she asks.</p>
<p>“I’ve helped make them,” he finds his voice a hoarse whisper, with all the roughness of cracking ice. “In my abuelo’s workshop.”</p>
<p>Leia doesn’t hesitate. She moves, carefully pulling her hands away. Suddenly, Cassian is cold, so cold, that he shivers. But only a moment later, even those shivers still, as Leia presses the music box into his hand. “It’s yours,” she whispers.</p>
<p>“Leia…” her name sounds more beautiful than any stanza of any poem. </p>
<p>She shakes her head once. “I called you here to thank you, for all you’ve done.”</p>
<p>“I did my job, nothing more.” It’s his turn to feel his face flush. He won’t take pity or a prize for the mission to Scarif. “The mission was to get the plans. Any soldier would have done the same.”</p>
<p>“All you’ve done for the planets my father so loved,” she replies. “And all you will yet do for them. I’ve called you here, Cassian Andor, to ask you to be our representative for the Atrivis sector, to work on the rebuilding there.”</p>
<p>If Cassian had been asked for his ideal role by Draven, perhaps he might have named exactly that. If there was one place his aching, tired heart longed to return to, it was the Atrivis Sector, and to Fest. He would give those planets a hundred of his years, if he had them to give. </p>
<p>And yet… he returns to the dream of only a moment ago. Of protecting Leia. Of sharing more stories, and more cups of tea. Of learning all that she is, behind the mask she wears.</p>
<p>“Y tú, Leia?” the words slip out, in Festian no less, as the distance between the past and the present merges. Worse, the familiarity only imagined in his thoughts appears too. If only he’d stuck to the formal, heavy words of Galactic Basic, which makes no distinction between the pronouns of a friend, and those of a stranger.</p>
<p>Or of a princess.</p>
<p>“What about me?” she asks.</p>
<p>If he had thought his face was warm before, now it burns like the sun’s reflected glare. He lies, as he’s trained to do, lies, because as always, the truth remains too dangerous. Cassian hides away his true thoughts, pretending he hadn’t imagined hoping the last princess of Aldreaan would accompany him to the forgotten planet of Fest. “The music box. It is all you have of your grandmother,” he says.</p>
<p>She shakes her head. “There are entire museum wings dedicated to my family, Captain Andor. I only have to search the holonet for a moment to find a court painting of my grandmother. Alderaan is gone, my family is gone, but the memory of the royal house of Alderaan…” she pauses, tracing a finger over the heavy necklace she still wears. Cassian wonders if she feels its weight, even when it’s not draped over her shoulders, the way he feels the pressure of a sniper rifle strapped against his side, long after the blaster is returned to storage. “That will live on, even if I never again wear the mantle of princess for its sake.”</p>
<p>“Nor for the Rebellion’s sake?” he asks.</p>
<p>She shakes her head. “The rebellion doesn’t need a princess.”</p>
<p>If she is not a princess, and he is not a spy… Cassian exhales sharply, forcing that thought away. There will be light-years between them soon, and missions deadly enough to dispel any foolish dreams. Both of them have duties to others that will always supersede the small thoughts they dare to think in quiet moments. It’s why they are so skilled at wearing masks, at hiding both their hopes and heartbreaks from others.</p>
<p> “The Rebellion needs leaders  and as many soldiers as it can find.” Her hands wrap around his all the tighter. “Take it, please.”</p>
<p>“As you wish,” he replies.</p>
<p>
“And…” Leia looks down at her hands, now empty. “I… I meant for this to be such a different conversation. Cassi-Captain Andor… I…”</p>
<p>“Cassian,” he says.</p>
<p>“I am sorry I’ve been so informal with you. I only… after today’s ceremony… after… I couldn’t…”</p>
<p>“I would have had this no other way.” He tucks the music box into a hidden pocket once meant for carrying poisons. Now, it carries hope. “After all, aren’t we both fighting for a world where a Seperatist boy and a Core-world girl can share a cup of tea?”</p>
<p>“Is that what I am? A snooty core-worlder?” there’s no malice in her voice, but rather, mischief in her eyes. </p>
<p>“Perhaps,” he replies. </p>
<p>“Perhaps I may yet surprise you then.”</p>
<p>“I would enjoy that.” As if she hasn’t already surprised him a hundred times in this shared hour. </p>
<p>“Something to look forward to, then, Cassian.” She stands, her dressing gown rippling like a sheet of snow around her, as she crosses her room to the storage cases. “Or should I say Ambassador Andor?”</p>
<p>The title nearly takes his breath away. He too stands, though his motions are none so graceful. When he reaches her side, that place he’d for a moment dreamed of being, she is already lost once more in thought, her hand skimming over some fine pale-pink gown in the chest. The luxury of the fabric, the glitter of the beading, each detail is a harsh reminder of the differences between them.</p>
<p>“You’ll have to return to this room,” she says, “before you leave. Take this chest, and the one below it. I may already be gone.”</p>
<p>“You wish for me to take your dresses to Fest?” Did she mean for him to sell them? A strange fundraiser, but an effort, all the same.</p>
<p>She turns to him, and that glitter in her eyes is all the brighter. “Oh, why of course. After all, no Imperial will question a silly princess’s gowns being sent off to be re-hemmed.” As she speaks, her hand pushes the dress away, crumbling it in a ball at the back of the chest. In doing so, she reveals what lies underneath.</p>
<p>Not royal trappings. Not treasure.</p>
<p>But armaments. Enough blasters to outfit an entire squadron.</p>
<p>The princess has kept her word, and surprised him yet.</p>
<p>“I… see…” he nods once.</p>
<p>“Will you let me know when you’re there?” she asks, and then, remembering who she’s talking to, and what she’s asking, she pauses. To communicate with a spy, even one on a mission like this, could mean his death.  “and when it is safe to do so?”</p>
<p>He nods. “I will find a way.”</p>
<p>“When it’s safe to do so,” she says again.</p>
<p>Something spurs him forward, something like hope, something like a wish so small and yet so vast he could never name it. Tenderly, he reaches for her hand, and amazingly, she does the same, so that her delicate fingers rest on his scarred palm. It’s the sort of moment, he thinks, that a painter would capture, that a storyteller would memorizle with words. It’s the sort of moment he’d given up thinking would ever happen during a war.</p>
<p>But maybe even in the midst of war, a story could be told, a story where, like in the best of them, the good will triumph over the dark, the princess will be safe and the man who had once been nothing more than shadows would become a hero.</p>
<p>Maybe even in the midst of war, a homesick man and a tired princess were allowed one small moment of happiness. He lifts her hand to his lips and presses a small kiss there. “I cannot promise safety,” he replies, ‘though I will do my best.”
</p>
<p>“That’s all I ask.”</p>
<p>At the doorway, she reaches out once more. He freezes, not like ice, but like the moment one enters a warm home and feels the hearth’s welcoming heat on his face, melting away all of the past. Then, the princess presses up on her tiptoes, her hand steadying herself against his good arm, and kisses his stubbled cheek.</p>
<p>He turns, ever so slightly, so that their next kiss is shared, their breath mingling like their hopes.</p>
<p>One last surprise, and one perfect moment, where neither spy nor princess wears a mask.</p>
<p>That one moment, to the two of them, is everything.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Finally in her quarters, Leia slowly unwinds the heavy braid from around the crown of her head then settles on the edge of her bed, yawning. The briefing is now over, the move-in is complete, and all she has left to do is…</p>
<p>Is everything.</p>
<p>Determine why the south tunnel keeps collapsing. Ensure the tauntauns have enough food to get through the next month. Return the messages of five other commanders, all wondering if Echo Base is ready for their units. There’s a great deal to do, and almost too many people in charge of doing it. Bodhi Rook is a general now, having proven himself with his quiet calm and brilliant maneuvers. Jyn Erso is a talented scout, who has already determined where the weakest parts of the base are and shored their walls. Han and Luke remain both Leia’s closest friends and largest thorns in her side. And those are just a few of the talented Rebels now aiding the cause, new faces among all the older ones who had known her father first, long before they turned to her for guidance.</p>
<p>They need her, Mon Mothma insists. Need her to represent not just Alderaan, not just the legacy of her father, but need her to be the light of the Rebellion itself.</p>
<p>But for right now, she needs a moment to herself. A moment to let the mask of authority slide away, a moment to be just a young woman with freezing hands and an aching head. She crosses her room to the small electro-kettle, fetching her favorite mug, and readying her tea. There’s little left of the dried floral leaves she’d once had as her daily drink, having switched to the standard issue bitter dust that all Alliance troops use. It’s a hard reminder to her that so little of her home planet is left, at least right now, to her. But she tries not to think about that, would rather think of all the good left in the galaxy, all of the ways the light of hope is still spreading</p>
<p>Today, she thinks, it might be the right time to use up what’s left. She’d saved it, foolishly, perhaps, to share with someone. Someone she hadn’t heard from in what felt like a lifetime, though surely it wasn’t that long since she’d left Yavin IV. </p>
<p>Someone she’d only known for an hour, and yet felt as if she could see a shared eternity in his eyes.</p>
<p>Leia considers the little bit of tea, then, shakes her head, and re-seals the lid.She will wait. She’s waited this long, what is one more day. Or week. Or year.</p>
<p>Or lifetime.</p>
<p>Strange, how heavy that last thought feels. But she pushes it away, as she always does, with the hope that has carried her this far.</p>
<p>He will stay safe. He’ll let her know that he’s safe.</p>
<p>The goodbye they shared wasn’t the end of their story, it was just the beginning.</p>
<p>With that resolute thought in mind, she sets the canister back down. There will be time to enjoy it later. She knows so. But she does enjoy, now, her delicate mug depicting Luciana’s quest. Her finger traces over the design, over each flying bird, as she waits for the water to boil.</p>
<p>The legendary princess had brought back the sun. Leia is no legend, she knows, but she too hopes to bring the sun, if not all of it, then at least the brightness of its strongest rays. Just as Cassian, too, wherever he is, must be bringing the sun back to the Atrivis sector. Both of them united in their tasks, separated by light-years and Imperial -controlled space.</p>
<p>And yet, despite all of those odds, Leia still has hope.</p>
<p>Her kettle whistles, a sign its come to a boil, and she busies herself making the tea. After allowing it time to steep, she lifts the mug and walks across the small, simple room, to her bunk. It’s so far removed from her royal suite on Alderaan, or even on the base back on Yavin IV. Leia knows she’s come to accept simplicity in a way she had never before. It’s a comfort, now, to have things neatly organized, nothing extra, nothing too difficult to pack in a hurry. Nothing, she thinks, but these cups, and that tea.</p>
<p>She wonders if new recruits have any idea she’d once been a princess. If they know that the woman who lines up next to them for whatever the mess hall’s daily offering for humanoids is, had once dined at a table made from crystal with plates made of gold, or if they knew that her words alone had doomed that planet, with all its finery, all its crystal and gold, to a fiery destruction. The others, Luke especially, have tried to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, but Leia still carries the weight of Alderaan on her shoulders. She thinks she will, if not forever, at least, until the end of the war.</p>
<p>Leia tries not to wonder what her life after the war will be like. If there’s a place in the galaxy for a woman like her. Even as she tries, though, a small, strange thought of taking up the work her father had once loved most, of heading out, far from the Core Worlds she’d spent so much of her youth on, and toward the Outer Rim. Perhaps… Her thumb strokes the careful painting on the mug, brushing over the small snowdrift depicted there. Perhaps even to Fest. She’d wanted to go with him, that day. She’d wanted to tell him she’d help load the stockpile of weapons she’d hidden. Then, all she had wanted, so desperately, to be away from the Alliance that asked everything of her and took so much from her. Let Luke be the new figurehead, she’d wanted to say. Let him inspire the troops. She wanted to grieve, to heal, far from the watchful eyes of the generals who still probably wished they had her father here, and not her. But she had said nothing. She’d handed out the medals, as she’d been directed to do. She’d said some inspiring words, or at least she thinks she may have, though that part of the day is nothing but a blur in her memory now. Leia had stayed, and had remained the figurehead the Rebellion needed through many more blurry days, until finally, she learned ways to carve out her own identity here.</p>
<p>Not a princess, not anymore, but a leader. The type of leader that she’d always wanted to be, if she had been honest with herself. The type of leader her father had been, and the one her mother would have been happy to see Leia become.</p>
<p>Luke had told her once that all he knew of Alderaan came from Leia. The planet’s courage, its grace, and its hope. She had thought him a bit silly then, given how many text-holos, how many artifacts still exist of the planet, but now she wonders if the farm boy might have been more perceptive in his statement. If there’s a way she can move forward in her life, all while keeping Aldereaan safe in her heart. </p>
<p>As safe as her grandmother had once kept the small music box.</p>
<p> She has just enough time for one sip, before a sharp knock at the door startles her out of her reverie. It’s so unexpected that the teacup slips from her hand, falling hard onto the floor. Leia gaps. </p>
<p>But the cup does not shatter. Rather, just the handle breaks from it, a clean break, leaving the crescent shape resting in a puddle of now-spilled tea. She’s relieved, and embarrassed to be so relieved. It’s just a mug, just a teacup, she tells herself. And yet, it had seemed like everything, in that split-second moment she’d nearly lost it.</p>
<p>“Your highness?’ the voice asks from outside.</p>
<p>She has to shake her head at that. It seems that to some soldiers, Leia will remain the last princess of Alderaan for a while yet. Some memories, some legacies, cling to a name far longer than others. “Please, come in,” she says out loud, and <em>please don’t call me that </em>she thinks silently. </p>
<p>He’s bundled up, the way most soldiers are on Hoth, given the planet’s icy climate, and his goggles still obscure his eyes. A scarf covers his nose and mouth, indeed, any skin not covered by his standard issue helmet. Despite that, Leia feels no fear. Her sense, that strange soft voice which whispers to warn her of danger, of ill intent by those around her, offers no warnings.  Not from this man, not from this moment. Rather, despite the broken cup, despite the spilled tea, her heart feels somehow lighter than it has in a long time.</p>
<p>“Package for you,” he says. “Came in on the latest shuttle.”</p>
<p>“A…” she trails off. “For me?” </p>
<p>He nods once, an efficient, simple gesture. Leia reaches out, taking the small box from him with hands that tremble, quite uncharastically so. Who could have sent her mail? Who did she have left that cared enough to do so, when the only friends she had left were here, on Echo Base, with her?</p>
<p>Unless…</p>
<p>She stares down at the writing. <em>To the princess. From the Never-Ending Sea’s shore.</em> A reference then, of the last quest undertaken by Princess Luciana. The same quest depicted in her mug. The same princess… Leia opens the package with a strange mix of frantic haste and gentle care. There’s only one person who would address it in such a way, only one person who would be able to find her here.</p>
<p>And only one thing he would send. </p>
<p>Leia tears through the last scrap of recycled plastifoam keeping the small object safe. It looks just as it always had, a small, unassuming metal orb, though it is now polished and gleams the way moonlight does on the snow here on Hoth. Holding her breath, Leia turns the knob. The ancient blue holo flickers to life once more, only this time, there are no breaks, no failures in the image. It plays through, a perfect replica of the dancing princess, all while the soft song whirls from deeper inside the music box.</p>
<p>He’s fixed it. Somehow, Cassian has not only fixed something long broken, but given her something else entirely. A well of hope springs up within her, as she plays the song through once more. Something so old, something so worn-down could still be made anew. Which meant too, perhaps, someone as worn down and jaded as her, could still be remade, into something new after the war.</p>
<p>The holo flickers out. Leia stares down at the space where it was, blinking fast. “He didn’t forget about me,” she whispers, the words slipping from her lips unbidden.</p>
<p>“No, he didn’t,” the soldier, who Leia now guilty remembers has been standing there the whole time, says.</p>
<p>Quickly, she looks up at him… only to find herself staring into soft brown eyes that seem to sparkle all the more now. He’s unwound his scarf and set his helmet on the table, so that his tousled brown hair and hesitant smile can be seen.</p>
<p>“Cassian,” she whispers.</p>
<p>At the sound of his name, his hesitant smile grows. “I said I’d let you know, once it was safe to do so.” He runs a hand through his hair, shaking out the smallest bit of snow from the helmet. Each bit falls, glittering like stars. “I admit it was not safe until now, standing before you, to say so.” </p>
<p>“I had no idea my words would be taken so literally,” she teases, lightly, or tries to, until his hands wrap around hers, gently enclosing the music box. Leia swallows, hard. “Thank you,” she says. “For repairing this. For…”</p>
<p>“Thank you for trusting me with it.” Cassian looks down at their entwined hands. “It felt like coming home, in a way, as much as returning to Fest did. Those gears, that song…”</p>
<p>“It led you home.”</p>
<p>“And it led me to you, once more.” His eyes meet hers, and in them, Leia sees the hope of a thousand lifetimes, the light of countless stars. “Leia. I’m not sure what lies ahead, for either of us but I was wondering if--”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she replies.</p>
<p>A faint chuckle escapes him. “I didn’t even finish.”</p>
<p>“But I knew,” she replies. She knows in that small, silent way that she knows many other things. That she knows that her friends will be safe here, if she leaves. That Luke will become a Jedi, that Han will become a leader, and Bodhi, a hero. She knows that she has done all she can for the Rebellion here, but that there is so much work to be done elsewhere.  “You want me to come back with you.”</p>
<p>He nods, just once, a small gesture, and yet, one that means so much. “When you’re ready to.”</p>
<p>Leia thinks of Princess Luciana’s quests, each more impossible than the last. Had her own life been the same way? Full of impossible things that somehow still were accomplished? Full of tragedy and hope in equal parts? Was this then just the next quest? </p>
<p>Or was it that happy ending she’d always hoped for?</p>
<p>Cassian steps away to kneel in front of the broken teacup. He lifts it, carefully, as if it’s worth all the treasure that once lay in Alderaan’s royal banks. “I’m sorry to have startled you,” he says.</p>
<p>“I don’t mind.”</p>
<p>“But your teacup…”</p>
<p>“It can be fixed.” Leia finally smiles as the reality of this moment sinks in. In some ways, she’s glad the teacup was broken, because it reminds her this isn’t a dream. This is real. Cassian is in front of her and all the lights in the universe seem so much brighter.  “Everything can be fixed in time.”</p>
<p>After he sets the teacup safely on her small desk, he turns back to her. “Is that so, princess?”</p>
<p>“I think so,” she replies. Carefully, she reaches out to brush the hair from his eyes and stroke his jawline with her thumb. “I think we are both living examples of such a truth.”</p>
<p>He nods again, and then, carefully, leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Then,” he whispers. “I think it’s time for us to see what else in the galaxy is in need of repair.”</p>
<p>In one hand, Leia holds the music box. In the other, she takes Cassian’s own, and squeezes it once, a small, silent promise of so many things yet unsaid.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>